Division 

Section 


i 


The  Religion  of 
Our  Lord 


Being  Addresses  delivered  at  the  Garrick  Theatre,  Chicago, 
during  Holy  Week,  1923,  and  at  the  Pabst  Theatre, 
Milwaukee,  during  Passion  Week,  1923 


BY  THE 

RT.  REV.  C.  P.  ANDERSON,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  Chicago 


MOREHOUSE  PUBLISHING  CO. 
MILWAUKEE,  WIS. 

A.  R.  MOWBRAY  &  CO. 
LONDON 


CONTENTS 

Religion  and  Civilization 
Religion  and  Race 
Religion  and  Politics  . 
Religion  and  Business  . 
Religion  and  the  Church 


.  3 
.  11 
.  20 
.  31 
.  41 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/religionofourlorOOande 


Lenten  Noon-Day 
Addresses 

of 

The  Rt.  Rev.  C.  P.  Anderson,  D.  D. 

Bishop  of  Chicago 


GARRICK  THEATRE 

CHICAGO 


Holy  Week 
19  2  3 


These  addresses  are  affectionately 
dedicated  to  the  memory 

of 

The  Right  Reverend  Charles  D.  Williams,  D.  D 
late  Bishop  of  Michigan, 
whose  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  led  him 
to  claim  all  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
for  his  Lord  and  Master. 


* 


* 


Religion  and  Civilization 


HERE  is  only  one  subject  to  which  I  can 


X  invite  your  consideration  during  this  Holy 
Week.  It  is  the  religion  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  the  same  subject  upon  which,  un¬ 
der  various  forms,  for  many  years  past,  I  have 
been  making  Holy  Week  addresses  to  which  you 
have  so  graciously  listened. 

This  week  I  shall  speak  about  the  Christian 
religion  in  its  bearings  on  our  civilization,  our 
business,  our  politics  and  our  various  social  re¬ 
lationships.  Let  me  set  you  at  ease,  however,  at 
the  outset,  by  assuring  you  that  I  shall  not  dis¬ 
cuss  “business  or  politics.”  The  Christian  reli¬ 
gion  is  my  theme,  but  it  is  the  Christian  religion 
in  business,  in  politics,  in  those  social  contacts 
which  make  or  mar  the  beauty  and  joy  of  living, 
and  which  determine  the  strength  of  our  allegi¬ 
ance  to  our  religion  and  our  God.  In  the  very 
forefront  of  everything  I  shall  say  will  stand 
the  commanding  figure  of  Jesus  Christ,  Who 
claims  for  His  own  many  regions  in  which  His 
religion  is  not  taken  seriously  by  His  followers, 
or  in  which  it  is  not  allowed  to  penetrate.  This 
is  the  confession  of  faith  with  which  I  start.  This 
is  the  platform  on  which  I  shall  ask  you  all  to 
stand,  that  there  is  no  sphere  of  human  conduct 
or  contact  from  which  the  Christian  man  can 
exclude  Jesus  Christ  as  his  Lord,  master  and 

+- - + 


[  3  ] 


guide.  Let  us  today  apply  that  principle  to  some 
of  the  affairs  that  go  to  make  up  our  civilization. 

It  used  to  be  said,  partly  in  jest  and  partly  in 
earnest,  that  religion  had  nothing  to  do  with 
business  or  politics.  Those  who  said  it  in  jest 
were  frequently  in  earnest.  Those  who  said  it 
in  earnest  were  frequently  intolerant  and  dog¬ 
matic  about  it.  This  demand  for  the  exclusion 
of  religion  from  spheres  which  were  regarded  as 
secular,  was  generally  accompanied  by  a  demand 
for  the  simple  Gospel.  By  the  simple  Gospel  was 
probably  meant  the  salvation  of  a  man’s  soul 
through  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ  and  through  no 
merits  of  his  own.  That  is  an  essential  part  of 
the  Gospel.  It  is  essential  because  it  exalts  Christ 
and  abases  oneself.  The  preciousness  of  that 
simple  Gospel  cannot  be  over-estimated.  It  is  a 
wonderful  thing  for  a  man  to  be  able  to  say, 
“Save  me,  O  Lord,  and  I  shall  be  saved.”  It  is 
not  the  whole  Gospel,  however.  It  is  not  the 
main  Gospel.  It  is  not  the  primary  Gospel.  The 
primary  Gospel  is : — “God  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life.”  The  whole  world  is 
the  object  of  the  love  of  God  and  the  subject  of 
His  redemptive  acts.  You  and  I  come  in  on  it 
because  we  accept  for  ourselves  what  is  available 
for  everybody.  It  is  because  God  loves  every¬ 
body  that  He  loves  you  and  me.  “Thy  Kingdom 
come,  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
Heaven” — that  is  the  goal  of  the  Christian  Gos¬ 
pel  as  expressed  in  our  Lord’s  own  language  of 


prayer.  “The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his  Christ; 
and  He  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever.”  That 
means,  if  it  means  anything,  that  we  shall  bend 
all  our  energies  towards  bringing  it  to  pass  that 
the  nations  of  this  wprld  recognize  the  sover¬ 
eignty  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  the  governments  of 
this  world  operate  under  His  sway,  that  industry 
conducts  itself  in  accordance  with  the  moral  law 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  that  commerce  conforms 
to  the  Christian  rule,  that  society  has  certain 
standards  of  decency  and  propriety  which  can  be 
designated  as  Christian,  and  that  our  civilization 
shall  become  Christian  in  its  structure,  its  cul¬ 
ture,  its  ethics  and  its  loyalties.  That  means  in 
turn  that  the  Christian  religion  is  concerned  with 
every  field  of  human  activity  and  that  its  busi¬ 
ness  is  to  operate  in  these  fields. 

It  won’t  do  any  longer  for  a  man  to  say : — 
“Religion  is  a  private  matter  between  me  and 
God,”  (and  he  often  puts  the  “me”  first).  Re¬ 
ligion  is,  of  course,  fundamentally  something 
between  God  and  me.  “Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind.”  This  is  the  first  and 
great  commandment.  This  is  the  foundation. 
The  second  commandment  is  like  unto  the  first. 
“Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.”  This 
is  the  superstructure.  Because  religion  is  a  cer¬ 
tain  kind  of  relationship  between  God  and  me,  it 
is  a  similar  kind  of  relationship  between  my 
neighbour  and  me,  between  my  church  and  me, 
between  my  country  and  me,  between  my  city  and 


* 


* 


me,  between  my  employer  and  me,  between  my 
employee  and  me,  between  my  landlord  and  me, 
between  my  tenant  and  me,  between  my  customer 
and  me,  between  my  enemy  and  me,  between  the 
Jew  and  me,  between  the  Negro  and  me,  between 
the  Turk  and  me,  between  everybody  and  me. 
The  relationship  of  God  to  the  human  race  is  de¬ 
fined  in  terms  of  love.  Therefore,  love  must  be 
the  basis  of  the  relationship  between  me  and  my 
neighbours.  “If  God  so  loved  us,  we  ought  also 
to  love  one  another.” 

Have  you  ever  noticed  the  parallel  between  a 
man’s  business  philosophy  and  his  religious  phil¬ 
osophy?  Religious  individualism,  which  made 
the  individual  rather  than  society,  the  center  of 
the  whole  scheme  of  things,  grew  up  side  by  side 
with  a  form  of  industrialism,  which  made  the 
rights  of  the  individual  rather  than  public  wel¬ 
fare,  the  center  of  the  scheme  of  things.  Both 
have  flourished,  but  both  are  running  on  the 
rocks  today.  On  the  other  hand,  the  conception 
of  religion  as  something  corporate, — as  a  society, 
a  church,  a  kingdom, — goes  hand  in  hand  with 
the  recognition  of  corporate  moral  obligations  on 
the  part  of  governments  and  with  some  kind  of 
mutualism  or  collectivism  or  partnership  in  the 
realm  of  industry.  These  seem  to  have  the  future 
in  their  hands.  The  man  who  says  that  religion 
is  a  private  affair  between  God  and  him  is  the 
same  man  who  goes  on  to  say  that  his  business 
is  a  private  affair  between  his  conscience  and  him. 
Under  that  philosophy  the  employer  of  men 
might  say: — “The  wages  that  I  pay,  the  seven- 


[  6  ] 


* 


* 


* 


* 


day  week  that  I  require,  the  twelve-hour  day  that 
I  exact,  the  little  children  whom  I  employ,  the 
profits  which  I  make,  the  dividends  which  I  de¬ 
clare,  the  liberties  which  I  give  or  withhold,  the 
civic  officials  with  whom  I  wickedly  connive, — 
these  are  private  affairs  between  me  and  my 
conscience.  Hands  off.”  And  the  man  who  is 
employed  might  say: — “The  quality  of  service  I 
render,  the  character  of  the  work  I  do,  the  hours 
I  shirk,  the  fraudulent  labor  I  cover  up,  the 
sabotage  I  cause, — these  are  my  private  affairs. 
Hands  off.”  Both  are  wrong.  These  are  not 
their  private  affairs.  Neither  religion  nor  busi¬ 
ness  is  anybody’s  private  affair.  A  man  can  no 
more  say  that  his  business  is  his  own  private 
affair  than  he  can  say  that  God  is  his  own  private 
God. 

Think  how  much  time  men  spend,  and  rightly 
spend,  over  business  and  politics.  Business  and 
politics  largely  regulate  and  control  our  fortunes, 
our  salaries,  our  incomes,  our  homes,  our  schools, 
our  streets,  our  parks,  our  playgrounds,  our  food, 
our  air,  our  water.  These  are  things  that  people 
talk  about,  think  about  and  worry  over.  These 
are  spheres  wherein  character  is  made  or  un¬ 
made,  wherein  souls  are  saved  or  lost.  Has  re¬ 
ligion  nothing  to  do  with  such  things?  If  not, 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  things  upon  which 
people  are  spending  nearly  all  their  waking 
hours,  and  in  the  handling  of  which  the  quality 
of  their  Christian  discipleship  is  determined.  If 
religion  is  not  a  determining  factor  in  such  mat¬ 
ters,  it  is  because  it  has  allowed  itself  to  be 


L  7  ] 


* 


* 


driven  up  into  a  little  corner  where  it  is  con¬ 
fined  exclusively  with  some  kind  of  ecclesias- 
ticism  or  other-worldliness  which  have  little  to 
do  with  the  building  up  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
on  the  earth.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Christian  Church 
is  weak  where  it  ought  to  be  strong.  It  has  been 
shoved  back  into  an  ecclesiastical  corner  of  the 
universe.  Back  there  it  is  let  alone.  Back  there 
it  lets  people  alone  and  does  not  trouble  their 
consciences.  Yet  such  is  the  perversity  of  human 
nature,  that  the  men  who  insist  on  keeping  reli¬ 
gion  apart  from  the  daily  affairs  of  men,  despise 
the  Church  for  her  isolation  and  lack  of  leader¬ 
ship.  “No  religion  is  Catholic  which  does  not 
claim  the  whole  of  the  life  of  every  man  and  of 
all  mankind — domestic,  industrial,  commercial, 
national,  international  and  ecclesiastical  for  God.” 

It  is  right  here  too  that  we  discover  the  weak 
point  in  our  civilization.  Everybody  is  saying 
that  world  civilization  is  in  a  bad  way.  I  hate  to 
join  in  this  lugubrious  dirge.  I  should  prefer  to 
have  you  call  me  almost  anything  except  a  pessi¬ 
mist.  Nevertheless  the  facts  just  now  seem  to 
be  on  the  side  of  the  pessimist.  Our  civilization 
seems  to  lack  salt.  It  lacks  the  ingredient  which 
would  make  it  savory.  It  is  sick,  even  if  busi¬ 
ness  is  beginning  to  look  up  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  sick  all  over.  The  sickness  is  taking  the 
form  of  a  corporate  insanity.  The  insanity  is 
taking  the  form  of  an  obsession.  The  obsession 
is  taking  the  form  of  a  belief  that  somehow  or 
other  everything  is  going  to  come  out  all  right 
whether  you  and  I  and  others  do  anything  about 


* 


* 


it  or  not.  The  greatest  delusion  of  the  twentieth 
century  is  the  belief  in  the  inevitability  of  prog¬ 
ress  regardless  of  what  men  do.  That  belief 
seems  to  be  based  on  an  erroneous  valuation  of 
evolution,  science  and  invention.  Evolution  tells 
the  story  of  downs  as  well  as  ups,  of  extinctions 
as  well  as  survivals.  The  best  does  not  always 
survive.  The  best  of  the  human  race  does  not 
survive  in  war  times.  Sometimes  the  worst 
seems  to  survive.  “The  germ  that  killed  Alex¬ 
ander  the  Great  at  the  age  of  thirty-two”  is  still 
alive  and  doing  its  deadly  work.  The  germs  that 
wrecked  the  world’s  greatest  civilizations  in  the 
past  are  still  alive  in  the  twentieth  century  and 
doing  their  deadly  work.  Retrogression  under 
certain  conditions  is  as  inevitable  as  progress  un¬ 
der  opposite  conditions.  As  for  science,  nothing 
can  be  more  thrilling  than  its  story  of  marvellous 
accomplishment.  It  is  wonderful.  It  is  thrilling. 
But  we  have  seen  the  discoveries  of  science,  es¬ 
pecially  in  the  department  of  chemistry,  turned 
to  man’s  destruction.  Progress  depends  not  so 
much  on  the  discoveries  of  science,  which  have 
possibilities  of  evil  as  well  as  good,  but  on  the 
uses  to  which  those  discoveries  are  put.  So  it  is 
with  our  inventions.  It  depends  on  what  we  do 
with  them.  One  can  fly  to  hell  as  easily  as  he 
can  fly  to  heaven  in  an  aeroplane.  One  can  send 
hate  over  a  radio  as  easily  as  love.  Notwith¬ 
standing  all  our  science  and  inventions  which  sur¬ 
pass  those  of  any  former  age,  our  age  has  not 
produced  a  poet  equal  to  Homer,  a  philosopher 


[  9  ] 


* 


* 


* 


4 

equal  to  Aristotle,  a  mind  equal  to  Plato,  a  spirit 
equal  to  St.  Paul. 

In  a  word,  there  are  no  automatic  forces  at 
work  in  the  world  which  guarantee  progress  to 
the  human  race  if  the  human  race  is  determined 
to  go  backward  instead  of  forward.  There  are 
no  subterranean  physical  forces  which  operate 
mechanically  in  compelling  people  to  go  forward 
or  backward  in  spite  of  themselves.  What  is 
progress?  It  seems  to  me  it  is  the  ability  to  re¬ 
ceive  and  transmit  truth,  beauty  and  goodness. 
Anything  that  makes  for  truth  anywhere,  for 
beauty  anywhere,  for  goodness  anywhere,  makes 
for  progress.  Anything  that  makes  for  lies,  for 
ugliness,  for  badness,  makes  for  retrogression. 

Truth,  beauty  and  goodness  are  the  character¬ 
istics  of  God,  Jesus  Christ  is  their  greatest  expo¬ 
nent.  He  is  their  greatest  exponent  in  every  age 
and  in  every  civilization.  I  cannot  therefore 
think  of  progress  in  our  age  and  civilization  apart 
from  Jesus  Christ.  For  progress  today  we  cer¬ 
tainly  do  not  need  more  war,  more  hate,  more 
strife,  more  bitterness,  more  covetousness,  more 
avarice ;  but  more  truth,  more  beauty,  more 
goodness,  more  love,  more  justice,  more  right¬ 
eousness,  more  of  those  things  that  lie  at  the 
heart  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Therefore,  I  conclude  that  there  is  none  other 
name  given  under  heaven  whereby  the  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  the  twentieth  century  can  be  saved  than 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 

* - * 


I  10  ] 


* 


* 


Religion  and  Race 

IS  POKE  to  you  yesterday  about  religion  and 
civilization.  Let  me  speak  to  you  today 
about  religion  and  race.  It  is  a  more  diffi¬ 
cult  subject.  One  of  the  missionary  prayers  of 
the  Church  with  which  many  of  you  are  familiar 
begins  thus : — “O  God,  Who  hast  made  of  one 
blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  the  face 
of  the  whole  earth.”  That  prayer  is  based  on 
a  part  of  the  speech  that  St.  Paul  made  to  the 
Athenians  on  Mars  Hill.  In  that  speech,  how¬ 
ever,  St.  Paul  made  an  important  statement 
which  has  not  been  incorporated  into  the  prayer. 
St.  Paul  said : — “God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all 
nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  hath  determined  the  times  before  ap¬ 
pointed,  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation.”  In 
that  one  sentence  he  utters  three  pregnant  truths. 
First,  the  oneness  of  the  human  family  regard¬ 
less  of  nationality,  race  or  color.  Second,  the 
right  of  each  race  to  live  its  own  separate  life 
without  molestation  in  its  own  habitations  and 
within  its  own  boundaries ;  and,  third,  the  fact 
that  that  right  has  divine  sanction  and  approval. 

The  highest  welfare  of  the  whole  human  race 
may  be  best  brought  about  by  each  race  living  its 
own  separate  life,  rather  than  by  an  attempt  to 
blend  incompatible  races  through  intermarriage 
or  through  an  economic  admixture.  For  in- 

■f - V 


[  11  ] 


►f * - di¬ 

stance,  it  may  well  be  that  America  and  Japan 
can  both  render  their  greatest  service  towards 
human  progress  by  living  apart,  rather  than  by 
any  social  or  industrial  amalgamation  of  these 
peoples.  There  seems  to  be  a  religious  as  well 
as  a  political  sanction  for  such  immigration  laws 
as  would  protect  the  ability  of  each  race  to  ren¬ 
der  its  own  service  in  its  own  way. 

St.  Paul  goes  further,  however,  and  says  that 
these  racial  distinctions  are  for  a  definite  pur¬ 
pose.  That  purpose  was  “that  they  should  seek 
the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him, 
and  find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every 
one  of  us ;  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.”  Just  as  each  race  makes  a 
unique  contribution  to  human  progress  which 
would  probably  be  lost  if  the  race  lost  its  identity 
in  the  crowd ;  so  also  the  special  contribution 
while  each  race  makes  to  the  fullness  of  men’s 
knowledge  of  God,  through  the  development  of 
its  own  spiritual  genius,  might  be  forfeited  in  a 
general  mixup  of  all  mankind.  The  Hebrew 
race  rendered  extraordinary  service  to  all  man¬ 
kind.  That  service  might  have  been  forfeited  if 
this  race  had  become  merged  with  the  surround¬ 
ing  nations.  Think  of  the  wonderful  contribu¬ 
tion  that  the  Greek  race  made  to  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  formative  period  of  its  existence, 
a  contribution  which  seemed  to  be  contingent 
upon  its  separateness.  Think  of  the  service  ren¬ 
dered  by  the  Roman  Empire  in  giving  to  the 
Christian  Church  its  own  genius.  Think  of  what 
China  and  Japan  and  India  and  Africa  may  yet 

•I - - - - - - - + 


[  12  1 


* 


do  for  the  enrichment  of  Christian  knowledge 
and  experience  when  each  consecrates  its  own 
unique  genius  to  the  service  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Races  which  are  clearly  differentiated  in  struc¬ 
ture,  color  and  pedigree  can  apparently  render 
their  greatest  service  to  mankind  by  separately 
developing  their  own  aristocracy  and  finding  their 
own  spiritual  expression ;  whereas  the  cross¬ 
breeding  of  such  races  may  produce  the  vices  of 
both  and  the  virtues  of  neither. 

At  any  rate,  the  contacts  of  incompatible  races 
have  always  been  a  source  of  trouble.  That 
trouble  has  often  led  to  riot,  massacre  and 
slaughter.  The  causes  of  the  friction  lie  deep 
down  in  ethnic  differences,  in  religious  convic¬ 
tions,  in  inequalities  of  economic  skill ;  but  it 
often  happens  that  some  comparatively  inconse¬ 
quential  thing,  which  is  easily  avoidable,  is  the 
immediate  cause  of  riot  and  destruction. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  going  by  boat  from 
Smyrna  to  Constantinople — from  Smyrna  which 
is  now  in  ruins  and  which  has  been  the  scene  of 
so  many  massacres,  to  Constantinople,  which  for 
centuries  has  been  the  center  of  political  intrigue. 
I  was  on  the  upper  deck  looking  down  at  the 
bow  of  the  boat.  It  was  jammed  with  people  of 
many  sorts.  It  was  about  sundown.  A  Moham¬ 
medan  took  off  his  coat  and  spread  it  on  the 
floor  and  began  to  say  his  evening  prayers.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  he  took  up  more  space  than 
the  crowded  condition  of  the  boat  warranted.  A 
Greek  Christian  stepped  on  his  coat.  It  seemed 

•i - - - b 


[  13  ] 


T 


* 


to  me  that  he  did  it  deliberately.  Whereupon  the 
Turk  ceased  his  prayers  and  flew  at  the  throat 
of  the  Christian.  Whereupon  other  Christians 
came  to  the  rescue  of  their  fellow  Christian. 
Whereupon  other  Turks  came  to  the  rescue  of 
their  fellow  Turk,  and  there  was  a  riot  on  board 
ship,  requiring  all  the  authority  of  the  boat’s 
officers  and  crew,  with  the  assistance  of  some  of 
the  passengers,  to  quell.  If  that  had  taken  place 
on  land  it  might  have  led  to  a  massacre,  and  yet 
it  started  with  a  little  thing. 

Let  us  come  now  by  a  single  flight  from 
Smyrna  to  Chicago.  You  and  I  live  in  a  polyglot 
and  cosmopolitan  city.  Some  forty-five  langu¬ 
ages  are  spoken  by  our  fellow  citizens.  Nearly 
all  the  nationalities  of  the  world  are  represented 
here  and  many  of  the  races.  We  have  white  and 
black  and  yellow,  we  have  Jew  and  Gentile. 
Between  those  races  there  are  natural  incompat¬ 
ibilities.  Those  incompatibilities  poison  the  at¬ 
mosphere,  take  the  sweetness  out  of  life  and 
easily  lead  to  riot  and  massacre.  Is  there  any¬ 
thing  that  can  intervene  to  prevent  friction  be¬ 
tween  the  incompatible  elements  of  our  citizen¬ 
ship?  I  hope  you  are  interested,  brethren.  I 
am  coming  now  to  a  matter  of  vital  religion  in  a 
sphere  where  you  and  I  very  rarely  practice  it. 
When  I  was  consecrated  a  Bishop,  the  question 
was  put  to  me : — “Will  you  maintain  and  set  for¬ 
ward,  as  much  as  shall  lie  in  you,  quietness,  love 
and  peace  among  all  men?”  I  have  been  trying 
to  do  it  throughout  my  ministry.  I  am  trying 
to  do  it  now.  I  love  Chicago.  I  love  it  so  much 

■! - + 


[  14  ] 


* 


* 

that  I  should  like  to  render  it  some  service.  If  I 
can  say  anything  this  morning  that  will  soften 
acerbities,  which  too  often  find  a  lodgment  in 
Christian  breasts,  I  shall  be  doing  something  for 
my  God  and  my  city. 

Is  there,  I  say,  anything  that  can  counteract 
racial  incompatibilities  and  head  off  trouble  in 
the  contacts  of  the  different  races  and  peoples 
that  make  up  our  citizenship?  Science  tells  of 
ethnological  differences,  history  tells  of  combats, 
philosophy  throws  up  its  hands  in  despair.  There 
is  only  one  thing  which  claims  to  have  the  power 
to  make  unlike  people  live  together  in  peace  and 
harmony.  That  one  thing  is  the  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Listen  to  what  Saint  Paul  says, 
“But  now  ye  also  put  off  all  these :  anger, 
wrath,  malice,  blasphemy,  filthy  communica¬ 
tion  out  of  your  mouth.  Lie  not  one  to  an¬ 
other,  seeing  that  ye  have  put  off  the  old  man 
with  his  deeds ;  and  have  put  on  the  new  man, 
which  is  renewed  in  knowledge  after  the  image 
of  Him  that  created  him;  where  there  is  nei¬ 
ther  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircum¬ 
cision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free;  but 
Christ  is  all,  and  in  all.  Put  on  therefore,  as 
the  elect  of  God,  holy  and  beloved,  bowels  of 
mercies,  kindness,  humbleness  of  mind,  meek¬ 
ness,  longsuffering ;  forbearing  one  another, 
and  forgiving  one  another,  if  any  man  have  a 
quarrel  against  any ;  even  as  Christ  forgave 
you,  so  also  do  ye.”  That  is  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion  as  applied  to  our  race  contacts.  It  has 
never  been  tried  on  a  large  scale.  It  has  been 

* - *• 


E  15  ] 


tried  on  a  small  scale.  It  has  worked  wherever 
it  has  been  tried.  During  the  war  when  men’s 
passions  and  prejudices  were  at  white  heat 
there  were  groups  of  people  representing  dif¬ 
ferent  and  conflicting  nationalities  and  races, 
which  were  continually  meeting,  without  any 
unpatriotism,  in  perfect  love  and  harmony,  be¬ 
cause  they  had  put  on  the  mind  of  Christ  Jesus 
which  overleaps  the  racial  and  national  barriers 
which  have  been  erected  between  men. 

I  have  only  time  to  apply  this  in  two  dif¬ 
ferent  directions.  What  should  be  the  attitude 
of  Christian  men  toward  the  Jew?  There  are 
millions  of  them  in  this  country  and  there  are  a 
lot  of  them  in  Chicago.  What  should  be  your 
attitude  as  Christian  people?  Certainly  you 
ought  not  to  be  Jew-baiters  or  propagators  of 
race  hatred  or  promoters  of  discord  and  envy. 
Certainly  your  Christian  profession  makes  you 
peacemakers  to  the  utmost  of  your  ability.  The 
Jewish  people  are  one  of  the  greatest  peoples 
that  the  world  has  ever  produced.  It  was  in 
their  language  that  the  moral  law  of  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  came  down  to  us.  Their  sacred 
scriptures  are  a  part  of  our  Scriptures.  Our 
Saviour  was  born  of  that  race.  They  are  our 
spiritual  forefathers.  From  their  loins  we  are 
sprung.  They  have  adorned  all  of  the  great 
professions.  They  have  exhibited  extraordi¬ 
nary  skill  in  art,  literature,  science  and  philan¬ 
thropy.  What  ought  to  be  your  attitude  to 
people  like  that?  Convert  them  if  you  can  by 
all  means.  Convert  them  if  you  can,  but  you 

*1 - * 


[  16  ] 


* 


* 


will  never  convert  them  by  calling  them  bad 
names,  by  knocking  them  down,  by  stirring  up 
trouble,  by  showing  your  animosity.  If  you  ever 
do  convert  them  you  will  do  so  by  excelling  them 
in  charity,  intelligence,  benevolence  and  phi¬ 
lanthropy.  Let  secular  organizations  of  Gen¬ 
tiles  and  Jews  do  what  they  will  in  the  way  of 
social  exclusiveness,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  universal  Man  whom 
no  race  can  monopolize,  ought  to  beget  in  you 
and  me  a  cosmopolitanism  and  catholicity  that 
will  recognize  merit  wherever  we  find  it,  and 
the  spiritual  ability  to  encompass  in  our  affec¬ 
tions  all  the  children  of  God. 

What  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  white 
Christian  in  Chicago  towards  the  black  Chris¬ 
tian?  This  is  a  practical  matter.  This  is  a 
sphere  wherein  we  can  practice  our  Christian¬ 
ity.  There  are  about  one  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  Negroes  in  Chicago.  The  number  has 
doubled  quite  recently.  They  were  brought  in 
here  by  industry.  They  were  exploited  by  poli¬ 
tics  after  they  got  here.  They  came  in  a  rush. 
They  upset  real  estate  values  and  social  equil¬ 
ibrium.  White  people  got  angry.  Black  people 
got  heady  and  strutted.  They  used  words. 
Words  led  to  a  riot.  In  that  riot  fifteen  white 
men  and  twenty-three  black  men  were  killed. 
One  hundred  and  seventy-eight  white  men  and 
three  hundred  and  forty-two  black  men  were 
injured.  Law  and  order  were  broken  down. 
Hoodlumism  reigned.  The  militia  had  to  be 
called  in.  Each  side  blamed  the  other.  There 

•! - * 


[  17  ] 


i 


* 


was  blame  on  both  sides ;  but  there  is  one  thing 
for  which  white  people  ought  not  to>  blame 
black  people.  Blame  industry,  if  you  will,  for 
its  social  iniquity  in  bringing  masses  of  black 
people  into  a  white  city  without  providing 
houses  for  them.  Blame  politics,  if  you  will, 
for  appealing  to  their  lowest  passions  and  preju¬ 
dices  after  they  came  here ;  but  let  not  white 
men  blame  black  men  for  doing  what  white 
men  have  always  done,  namely  seek  opportun¬ 
ities  for  advancement. 

The  Negroes  of  Chicago  are  making  remark¬ 
able  progress.  They  operate  over  thirteen 
hundred  places  of  business,  several  high-grade 
social  centers,  one  first-class  hospital,  sixty-five 
churches,  which  are  worth  over  two  millions  of 
dollars.  They  spend  a  quarter  of  a  million  dol¬ 
lars  every  year  in  maintaining  their  churches. 
They  have  thousands  of  bank  depositors  and 
they  have  deposited  millions  of  dollars  in  white 
men’s  banks.  Isn’t  all  that  to  their  credit  ?  And 
ought  not  white  people  to  take  an  attitude  of  help¬ 
fulness  instead  of  an  attitude  of  hostility  to¬ 
wards  these  people?  Of  course  the  white  race 
is  the  dominant  race.  We  have  the  right  to  in¬ 
sist  that  minority  races,  whether  black  or  yel¬ 
low,  will  adjust  themselves  to  this  fact;  but  a 
superior  race  which  fails  to  treat  an  inferior 
race  in  a  superior  manner  forfeits  its  claim  to 
superiority. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  a  great  many  trou¬ 
bles  arose  through  little  things  which  could  be 

•i - * 


[  18  ] 


easily  avoided.  The  report  of  Governor  Low- 
den’s  commission  on  the  race  situation  in  Chi¬ 
cago  has  many  interesting  things  to  say,  but 
it  is  especially  interesting  in  pointing  out  how 
little  things  make  big  troubles.  The  Negro 
wants  schools  for  his  children,  he  wants  his 
alleys  kept  clean,  he  wants  equal  pay  for  equal 
service,  he  wants  to  be  permitted  to  join  the 
union.  He  objects  to  the  press  spelling  the 
word  “Negro”  with  a  small  “n.”  He  objects  to 
being  called  “nigger.”  I  think  his  objections 
are  well-founded.  At  any  rate,  here  is  a  sphere 
where  the  people  of  this  polyglot  city,  in  which 
it  would  be  easy  at  any  moment  to  start  a  flame 
by  scratching  a  match,  have  a  chance  to  prac¬ 
tice  their  Christianity.  Let  us  remember  that 
all  the  people  are  the  children  of  our  God  and 
are  our  brothers  and  sisters.  Let  us  remember 
that  they  are  the  people  for  whom  Christ  Jesus 
died.  Let  us  remember  that  many  of  them  are 
the  representatives  of  races  which  have  ren¬ 
dered  extraordinary  service  to  mankind,  that 
some  of  them  are  backward  races  which  show 
a  capacity  for  development.  Let  us  cut  out  of 
our  vocabulary  such  words  as  Sheeney,  Dago, 
Nigger,  Polack,  Wops.  Let  us  remember  our 
religion.  Let  us  remember  that  in  Jesus  Christ 
there  is  neither  Gentile  nor  Jew,  black  nor 
white,  but  all  are  one  in  Him. 


* 


* 


Religion  and  Politics 

1  SHALL  speak  to  you  today  about  religion 
and  politics.  I  ought  perhaps  to  say  relig¬ 
ion  in  politics,  for  of  course  religion  is  the 
subject  that  is  under  consideration.  I  shall  take 
it  today  into  a  region  where  it  is  a  good  deal  of 
a  stranger.  Politics  is  that  department  of  human 
life  into  which  religion  rarely  penetrates,  and  in 
which  consequently  there  is  so  little  hope  of  the 
realization  of  one’s  political  ideals.  “Good  gov¬ 
ernment  is  the  hardest  of  all  problems,  and  it  has 
never  yet  been  solved.  Political  history  is  an  al¬ 
most  unrelieved  tragedy.”  The  tragedy  is  due 
in  part  to  the  fact  that  religion  and  citizenship 
rarely  keep  company. 

All  citizens  might  well  be  grouped  under 
three  heads.  First,  the  bad  citizens  who  make 
no  bones  about  it ;  second,  the  religious  citizens 
who  either  keep  out  of  politics  because  they  are 
so  unholy,  or  else  demand  an  impractical  Utopia 
in  the  clouds ;  third,  practical  good  citizens  who 
work  and  struggle  and  even  fight  for  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  their  ideals  but  who  are  governed  never¬ 
theless  by  the  principle  that  when  they  can’t  get 
what  they  want  they  get  what  they  can.  The 
bad  citizens  who  go  into  politics  and  the  religious 
citizens  who  keep  out  of  them  because  they  are 
bad,  are  probably  about  equal  in  number.  It  so 
happens,  however,  in  the  world  of  practical  pol- 

•i - h 


[  20  ] 


itics,  that  the  religious  citizen  who  keeps  out  of 
politics  because  they  fall  short  of  his  ideals,  fits 
in  admirably  with  the  plans  of  the  bad  citizen 
who  has  no  ideals  at  all.  That  puts  a  heavy  re¬ 
sponsibility  on  those  who  cannot  be  classified 
with  the  bad  citizens  on  the  one  hand,  and  who, 
on  the  other  hand,  make  no  claim  to  any  high  de¬ 
gree  of  heavenly-mindedness.  On  a  former  oc¬ 
casion,  when  I  was  speaking  from  this  platform 
on  city  politics,  I  carried  you  back  to  that  politi¬ 
cal  classic,  Plato’s  Republic.  Let  me  recall  the 
reference  for  it  brings  me  to  the  heart  of  our 
subject.  It  is  a  dialogue  between  Socrates  and 
Glaucon.  Socrates  contends  that  every  wise 
man  will  desire  moral  growth.  “He  will  not  then 
engage  in  politics,”  says  Glaucon.  “Not  in  his 
native  land  perhaps,  unless  some  Divine  event  be¬ 
falls,  but  in  his  own  true  state  he  will,”  replies 
Socrates.  To  which  Glaucon  answers,  “You 
mean  the  state  which  we  were  just  working  out 

on  paper . for  of  course  it  exists  nowhere  on 

the  earth.”  “Quite  true,”  rejoins  Socrates,  “it 
exists  nowhere  on  earth,  but  in  heaven  a  pattern 
is  laid  up  for  whoever  desires  to  see  it,  and  see¬ 
ing  it  to  make  it  his  home.”  This  is  St.  Paul’s 
teaching  also.  St.  Paul  was  a  Roman  citizen.  He 
set  much  store  by  it.  On  two  occasions  he  ap¬ 
pealed  to  the  civil  law,  though  without  satisfac¬ 
tory  results.  He  summed  up  his  doctrine  of 
Christian  citizenship  in  these  words : — “Our  cit¬ 
izenship  is  in  heaven.”  “We  are  fellow-citizens 
with  the  saints  and  of  the  household  of  God.” 
Here  are  two  of  the  world’s  master-minds,  Plato 


* 


* 

and  St.  Paul,  who  still  represent  the  last  word  in 
politics.  Their  political  creed  may  be  stated  in 
this  way: — “I  believe  that  I  am  a  citizen  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  I  believe  that  as  such,  my 
political  duty  is  to  do  everything  in  my  power 
towards  reproducing  here  on  the  earth  that  per¬ 
fect  political  state  which  would  obtain  in  a  per¬ 
fect  world.” 

This  too  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ.  “Thy 
will  be  done  on  earth,  as  it  is  done  in  Heaven.” 
He  taught  us  to  “render  unto  Caesar  the  things 
that  are  Caesar’s.”  That  is  a  simple,  but  far-reach¬ 
ing  statement  to  which  only  an  infinitesimal  por¬ 
tion  of  Christian  people  have  paid  any  attention. 
That  is  why  the  word  politics  has  become  a  syno¬ 
nym  for  treachery  and  corruption.  But  this  is  not 
the  whole  of  our  Lord’s  teaching,  however.  Just 
as  Christ  based  our  duty  towards  our  neighbors 
on  our  duty  towards  God,  so  He  based  our  duty 
towards  the  state  on  our  duty  towards  God. 
“Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar’s 
and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God’s.”  Men 
will  never  do  the  former  until  they  learn  how  to 
do  the  latter.  “Thy  Kingdom  come.”  There  is 
the  foundation  of  Christian  politics.  The  King¬ 
dom  of  God  is  in  the  process  of  becoming.  You 
and  I  are  members  of  that  Kingdom  of  God 
which  will  last  forever.  At  the  same  time  we 
are  citizens  of  a  political  democracy  which  may 
not  last  for  a  century.  As  citizens  of  a  political 
democracy  which  has  no  guarantee  of  per¬ 
manence  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  imbedded  and 
embodied  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  we  are  to  live 

* - - p 


[  22  ] 


* 


+■ 

and  act  and  work  and  vote  like  citizens  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  That  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  citizenship.  I  want  to 
apply  it  to  some  practical  political  affairs  in 
our  own  time. 

Political  history  is  very  largely  a  history  of 
wars.  In  the  early  days  wars  were  ostensibly 
aggressive  in  purpose.  Later  on,  as  men’s  con¬ 
sciences  became  more  acute,  the  story  of  war  has 
too  often  been  the  story  of  the  skill  by  which 
Machiavelian  diplomacy  and  political  propaganda 
hoodwinked  the  people  into  believing  that  their 
particular  wars  were  for  spiritual  integrity,  even 
though  in  fact  they  may  have  been  wars  of 
acquisitiveness. 

In  our  time  when  all  the  parts  of  the  world 
have  been  drawn  so  close  together,  wars  are  so 
world-wide  in  their  reach,  so  dysgenic  in  their 
effects,  so  eliminative  of  the  healthiest  and  the 
strongest  of  the  race,  so  incalculably  destructive, 
so  provocative  of  that  hatred  and  strife  which 
undermine  civilization,  that  if  there  is  to  be  an¬ 
other  hundred  years  of  history  like  the  last  hun¬ 
dred  years,  the  human  race  will  become  fright¬ 
fully  deteriorated  and  our  civilization  will  col¬ 
lapse.  Notwithstanding  that  fact,  which  no 
thoughtful  man  will  deny,  the  war  germs  are  just 
as  busily  at  work  today  as  they  have  been  at  any 
other  period  of  history.  The  world  has  appar¬ 
ently  learned  nothing  from  the  last  war  in  which 
all  parties  to  it  were  more  or  less  paralyzed. 
Europe  would  be  a  hotbed  of  war  today  if  it  had 

* - 


[  23  ] 


* 


the  tools.  It  would  be  an  easy  thing  to  provoke 
a  war  between  the  Ufiited  States  and  Japan  or 
between  the  United  States  and  Mexico. 

What  is  going  to  be  done  about  it?  Is  there 
any  way  that  these  war  germs  can  be  extermi¬ 
nated  for  the  safety  of  civilization?  Is  there  any 
way  of  taking  war  out  of  the  hands  of  govern¬ 
ments  and  politicians  and  financiers  and  putting 
it  into  the  hands  of  the  people?  Is  there  any  way 
of  substituting  spiritual  force  for  physical  force? 
What  are  you  and  I  going  to  do  about  it  ?  I  can 
only  speak  for  myself,  and  if  I  use  the  pronoun 
I  beyond  the  realm  of  good  taste  it  is  in  the  hope, 
that  by  articulating  my  own  position  I  can  help 
you  to  formulate  yours  even  though  you  reach 
different  conclusions. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  time  has  come  when 
we  should  put  a  fresh  valuation  on  war  and  de¬ 
termine  beforehand  what  our  attitude  is  going 
to  be  concerning  it.  Speaking  for  myself,  I  am 
not  a  pacifist.  There  have  been  wars  and  there 
may  be  wars  in  the  future  when  the  highest  serv¬ 
ice  that  a  man  can  render  is  to  offer  up  his  life 
to  what  he  considers  to  be  the  higher  life.  I  have 
carefully  reflected  upon  the  last  war.  I  still  be¬ 
lieve  that  we  went  into  it  under  the  pressure  of 
a  moral  necessity  and  that  we  chose  the  higher 
of  two  courses.  A  drove  of  sheep  might  pass 
unanimous  resolutions  in  favor  of  vegetarianism. 
Those  resolutions  would  not  count  for  much, 
however,  if  a  pack  of  wolves  happened  to  be 
close  by.  So  long  as  there  are  wolves  in  human 

* - * 


[  24  ] 


* 


* 

society  we  may  have  to  treat  them  in  the  only 
way  that  the  wolf  can  understand.  There  may 
be  in  the  future,  justifiable  wars  for  innocence, 
for  the  weak,  for  backward  peoples,  for  the 
downtrodden  and  the  oppressed.  On  the  other 
hand,  wars  of  acquisitiveness  and  conquest,  wars 
for  markets,  for  mines,  for  oil  wells,  (and  they 
represent  most  of  the  world’s  wars)  are  wars  of 
an  entirely  different  character.  If  another  war 
of  such  sort  looms  up  on  the  horizon  in  your 
lifetime  or  mine,  I  hope  that  we  shall  have  the 
perspicacity  to  see  through  the  lying  political 
propaganda  by  which  it  is  sought  to  persuade  us 
that  a  war  for  conquest  is  really  a  war  for  spir¬ 
itual  integrity,  and,  that,  recognizing  the  cam¬ 
ouflage,  we  may  by  the  grace  of  God  be  able  to 
resist  it  and  take  the  consequences.  It  seems  to 
me  that  this  is  the  Christian  position.  It  is 
Christian  because  it  represents  a  willingness  to 
give  up  one’s  life  for  the  Kingdom  of  God’s 
sake  and  an  unwillingness  to  take  by  force  what 
belongs  to  somebody  else.  There  are  a  good 
many  millions  of  Christians  in  the  world.  If  ten 
per  cent  of  the  Christian  people  of  the  United 
States  and  England  and  France  and  Italy  and 
Germany  were  to  take  some  such  a  position  as 
here  indicated  we  would  soon  substitute  brains 
for  brawn,  conference  for  conflict,  spiritual  force 
for  physical  force.  In  the  last  analysis,  it  is  only 
by  some  such  determination  as  this,  on  the  part 
of  Christ-minded  people,  that  wars  of  aggres¬ 
sion  will  cease  and  the  day  begin  to  dawn  when 

* - - - - - - — - * 


[  25  ] 


4 


“The  war  drum  will  beat  no  longer  and  the  battle 
flag  be  furled 

In  the  parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the 
world.” 

What  about  the  political  responsibility  of  our 
country  toward  world  affairs?  Now  please  do 
not  think  that  I  am  availing  myself  of  this  plat¬ 
form  to  take  a  sideswipe  at  any  political  party. 
I  hope  I  am  above  that.  You  are  not  interested 
in  my  politics.  If  you  are,  I  am  an  unhappy 
Republican.  That,  however,  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  We  are  thinking  today  about  Christian¬ 
ity  in  politics.  Let  us  get  hold  of  our  Christian¬ 
ity  first,  and  let  our  Christianity  get  a  good  hold 
on  us.  The  reason  why  people  do  not  get  a 
good  grip  on  their  political  duties  is  because 
they  have  not  got  a  good  grip  on  their  religion. 

We  started  out  this  morning  by  saying  the 
Creed : — “I  believe  in  God.”  Yesterday  we  saw 
that  the  God  in  Whom  we  believe  is  He  Who 
made  of  one  blood  all  the  nations  that  dwell 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  said  this  morn¬ 
ing: — “I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ.”  Christ  is  the 
Light  of  the  whole  world  and  not  of  any  one 
nation.  We  said : — “I  believe  in  the  Holy  Cath¬ 
olic  Church.”  Its  mission  is  to  cover  the  world. 
No  nation  has  a  monopoly  of  it.  When  a  Chris¬ 
tian  man  gets  hold  of  those  three  ideas  he  must 
think  in  world  terms.  He  must  think  in  terms  of 
the  whole.  I  do  not  see  how  a  real  Christian 
man  can  be  little  or  local  or  petty  or  provincial. 
He  must  be  cosmopolitan.  He  must  act  poli- 

* - - * 


[  26  ] 


* 


* 


tically  as  one  who  has  in  mind  the  whole  world 
which  God  loves  and  which  Jesus  Christ  came 
to  save.  Nothing  that  is  human  can  be  foreign  to 
him,  for  he  has  learned  that  if  any  part  of  the 
world  suffers,  our  whole  civilization  suffers. 

It  may  prejudice  my  case  to  use  an  illustra¬ 
tion  with  which  you  will  probably  not  agree.  I 
shall  not  press  it,  but  it  belongs  to  my  subject.  I 
dislike  the  use  of  the  national  flag  in  our  churches 
except,  perhaps,  on  special  national  occasions.  I 
remember  well,  on  the  occasion  of  my  first  visit 
to  Europe  many  years  ago,  being  shocked  at  see¬ 
ing  the  tattered  flags  of  war  hung  up  in  the  ca¬ 
thedrals  of  England,  France  and  Germany.  It 
did  not  seem  to  me  then  and  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  now  that  the  House  of  God  is  the  place  to 
hang  up  emblems  which  mark  the  time  when  one 
group  of  Christians  left  another  group  of  Chris¬ 
tians  lying  dead  on  the  battlefield.  When  I  say : 
— “I  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,”  I  am 
thinking  of  something  to  which  all  nationalities 
belong.  They  are  all  our  Christian  brothers.  Be¬ 
cause  the  Church  is  universal,  it  seems  to  me 
that  its  emblems  should  be  universal.  The  cross 
on  which  Christ  died  for  the  world,  the  lights 
which  proclaim  that  He  is  the  light  of  the  world, 
the  font  which  symbolizes  the  “one  baptism  for 
the  remission  of  sins”  throughout  the  world,  the 
bread  and  wine  of  the  Eucharist — the  symbols  of 
the  food  of  the  souls  of  the  people  of  the  whole 
world — these  seem  to  me  to  be  the  appropriate 
emblems  of  the  universal  Church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Well  then,  our  religion  being  what  it  is,  it 

* - 


I  27  ] 


* 


* 


ought  certainly  to  affect  our  politics.  It  would  be 
a  mighty  poor  religion  if  it  didn’t.  If  your  relig¬ 
ion  does  not  make  any  difference  to  your  poli¬ 
tics  you  have  good  reason  to  be  ashamed  of 
both  your  religion  and  your  politics.  Our  re¬ 
ligion,  being  a  world  religion,  which  touches  the 
whole  human  family,  is  bound  to  come  into  con¬ 
flict  with  our  politics,  which  are  frequently  par¬ 
tisan,  petty,  local  and  selfish.  In  that  case  which 
is  to  govern  us?  Is  our  religion  to  be  debased 
by  our  politics,  or  our  politics  to  be  ennobled  by 
our  religion?  If  our  religion  is  in  control,  then 
anything  that  squints  in  the  direction  of  human 
fellowship  and  international  brotherhood,  any¬ 
thing  that  looks  in  the  direction  of  partnership 
instead  of  strife,  of  intelligence  instead  of  con¬ 
flict,  of  love  instead  of  hate,  of  spiritual  force  in¬ 
stead  of  physical  force,  will  have  our  support,  re¬ 
gardless  of  the  political  party  from  which  it 
emanates.  If  our  allegiance  to  our  religion  is  not 
greater  than  our  allegiance  to  any  political  party, 
then  the  less  we  say  about  our  religion  the  better. 

The  greatest  enemy  to  political  progress  is  the 
man  of  mature  years  who  boasts  of  his  un¬ 
deviating  allegiance  to  his  political  party.  No 
political  party  has  ever  earned  the  title  to  such 
allegiance.  The  man  who  makes  this  boast  must 
have  many  things  on  his  conscience  of  which  he 
is  ashamed ;  for  he  has  been  the  cheap  tool  of 
corrupt  and  unpatriotic  politicians.  Partyism,  or 
the  substitution  of  the  part  for  the  whole,  has 
been  the  bane  of  politics.  The  independent  voter 
is  the  only  hope  of  political  progress,  for  he 

* — - - * 


[  28  ] 


* 


holds  the  balance  of  power  and  makes  sinners 
tremble.  How  can  we  escape  the  slavery  of  party 
politics  except  by  giving  our  allegiance  to  some¬ 
thing  higher  ?  As  citizens  let  us  claim  the  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  has  set  us  free  and  in  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  our  freedom,  serve  politics  by  bringing 
civic  duties  up  to  the  level  of  religion  instead  of 
allowing  politics  to  drag  our  religion  down  into 
a  sewer. 

Much  is  said  about  Americanization  in  our 
time,  perhaps  too  much.  In  many  ways  we  need 
to  un-Americanize  ourselves  before  we  begin  to 
Americanize  the  foreign-born.  The  open  disre¬ 
gard  for  law,  the  conspicuous  lawlessness,  the 
shocking  disregard  towards  those  in  authority 
which  characterize  average  Americanism  are 
things  which  we  hope  the  forthcoming  citizens 
will  not  learn.  If,  however,  by  Americanization 
is  meant  a  knowledge  of  the  American  Constitu¬ 
tion,  and  the  importance  of  civic  duties,  then  the 
more  we  Americanize  both  ourselves  and  others, 
the  better  it  will  be  for  all  of  us. 

As  I  speak  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  mayor¬ 
alty  campaign.  All  the  candidates  seem  to  be 
good  men.  All  are  making  good  promises. 
Party  politics  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  case. 
It  looks  as  though  there  ought  to  be  better  days 
ahead.  Make  up  your  minds  now  to  support  the 
man  who  is  elected  until  or  unless  you  have  sub¬ 
stantial  reasons  for  doing  otherwise.  So  many 
think  that  good  citizenship  consists  of  knocking 
down  a  man  as  soon  as  he  is  set  up.  It  doesn’t. 

* - + 


[  29  ] 


•i - - *• 

It  consists  of  holding  him  up  unless  and  until 
he  knocks  the  rest  of  us  down.  Clearly  we  must 
get  education  out  of  politics  or  else  put  some 
religion  and  decency  into  politics.  Clearly  we 
must  keep  the  police  out  of  politics  or  else  put 
some  religion  into  politics.  Clearly  we  all  must 
keep  in  mind  our  Christian  teaching — that  our 
citizenship  is  in  heaven — and  think  and  speak 
and  act  and  vote  like  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 


* 


* 


[  30  ] 


Religion  and  Business 

TODAY  my  subject  is  religion  in  business. 
Most  of  the  men  who  come  to  these  meet¬ 
ings,  and  many  of  the  women,  are  engaged  in 
business.  You  come  here  from  nearby  stores 
and  banks  and  offices  and  factories  where  you 
are  engaged  in  making,  buying,  selling  and  dis¬ 
tributing.  It  is  not  necessary  to  catalogue  your 
businesses ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  you  are  en¬ 
gaged  in  business. 

For  what  purpose  are  you  engaged  in  busi¬ 
ness?  What  is  your  underlying  motive?  What  is 
the  goal  that  you  are  endeavoring  to  reach  ? 
Those  questions  would  doubtless  receive  a  va¬ 
riety  of  answers.  Yet  a  straightforward  answer 
from  that  very  elusive  person  whom  we  call  the 
average  man  would  probably  be  something  like 
this : — “I  am  engaged  in  business  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  making  money.  I  must  have  money.  I 
have  to  make  a  living.  I  need  money  for  food, 
clothes,  rent,  taxes,  insurance,  doctors,  dentists, 
books,  travel.  I  need  money  for  church,  charity, 
philanthropy.  Business  is  business.  Charity  is 
charity.  Religion  is  religion.  They  are  all  good 
things,  but  don’t  try  to  mix  them  up.  I  am  not 
in  business  for  love,  I  am  out  for  the  purpose  of 
making  money.” 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  this  audience  was 
made  up  entirely  of  members  of  the  medical  pro- 


* 


* 


fession  and  that  they  were  to  say  that  they  were 
engaged  in  that  profession  for  the  purpose  of 
making  money.  Wouldn’t  you  consider  that  that 
was  an  indignity  to  their  profession?  Of  course 
doctors  need  money  the  same  as  other  people.  I 
don’t  want  to  be  convicted  of  any  silly  nonsense. 
“The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.”  But  would 
not  any  doctor  who  is  worthy  of  his  profession 
claim  that  his  purpose  in  life  is  to  heal  the 
sick,  to  assuage  pain,  to  save  human  life,  to  ren¬ 
der  a  service  to  suffering  humanity?  In  other 
words,  he  would  interpret  his  profession  in  terms 
of  service,  rather  than  in  terms  of  money.  Or  let 
us  suppose  that  this  audience  was  made  up  en¬ 
tirely  of  college  and  seminary  professors,  and 
preachers,  and  that  they  were  to  admit  that  they 
were  engaged  in  those  callings  for  the  purpose  of 
making  money.  Wouldn’t  you  conclude  that 
they  had  lost  their  wits  in  selecting  those  profes¬ 
sions  for  money-making  purposes,  or  else  that 
they  were  unfit  for  their  jobs?  If  they  were  fit 
for  their  jobs  they  would  say  that  they  believed 
they  had  a  vocation  and  that  they  could  render 
their  best  service  in  those  particular  fields. 

V ery  well.  Why  should  the  average  business 
man  demand  of  the  doctor  and  the  professor  and 
the  preacher  a  standard  of  service,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  is  content  to  accept  for  himself  a 
lower  standard,  namely,  a  standard  of  mere 
money-making?  But  it  may  be  somewhat  un¬ 
fair  to  put  it  in  this  way,  and  at  this  point  in  our 
deliberations,  our  average  business  man  begins 
to  hedge.  He  will  claim  that  business  is  in  itself 

-I* - - — - - - - - — — - ►£. 


[  32  ] 


* 


* 


a  service.  Of  course  it  is,  or  if  it  is  not,  it 
ought  to  be.  The  business  world  has  not  got 
entirely  away  from  the  idea  of  service,  even 
though  it  be  service  for  profits’  sake  rather  than 
for  the  sake  of  service.  The  word  service  is 
incorporated  into  the  name  of  many  business 
concerns.  There  are  many  public  “service”  com¬ 
panies.  Banks  and  business  houses  widely  ad¬ 
vertise  that  their  aim  is  to  serve.  They  do 
serve.  In  the  long  run  they  will  not  make  any 
money  unless  they  serve.  Every  well-conducted 
business  is  a  public  service.  One  might  go 
further  and  say  it  is  a  philanthropy.  Neverthe¬ 
less  you  will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  all  the 
difference  in  the  world  between  being  engaged  in 
business  for  the  purpose  of  service  and  being 
engaged  in  business  for  the  purpose  of  making 
money.  It  is  one  thing  to  set  out  to  serve  and 
to  make  money  as  a  sort  of  by-product;  it  is 
another  thing  to  set  out  solely  to  make  money 
and  to  render  service  incidentally  as  a  sort  of 
by-product. 

What  does  our  Lord  say  to  the  business 
man,  to  the  man  who  is  stressing  and  straining 
to  make  money  with  which  to  buy  his  food  and 
clothing  and  to  pay  his  taxes ;  to  the  man  who 
is  employing  all  his  energy  to  make  profits  and 
to  declare  dividends?  Our  Lord  says  to  that 
man : — “Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and 
His  righteousness ;  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you.”  Our  Lord  does  not  here  or 
elsewhere  say  anything  to  imply  that  He  be¬ 
littles  the  need  or  the  importance  of  money. 

* - 1. 


[  33  ] 


t 


-fr 

He  does  warn  us  against  the  dangers  of  riches. 
Wealth  is  a  terrible  danger.  The  danger  is  that 
its  owner  may  think  that  it  is  all  for  his  own 
pleasure  and  profit  and  fail  to  recognize  its  obli¬ 
gations  and  its  extraordinary  possibilities  for 
public  service.  Wealth  either  makes  a  man  or 
breaks  him.  It  either  lifts  him  up  to  the  dignity 
of  its  responsibilities  or  else  it  causes  him  to 
shrink  back  within  his  shell  where  his  soul 
shrivels.  Our  Lord  knew  perfectly  well  that  men 
cannot  live  on  air  alone.  He  did  not  exhort 
men  to  seek  only  the  Kingdom  of  God  because 
they  had  no  need  of  food  and  clothing  and  money. 
What  he  emphasizes  is  the  need  of  proportion. 
Put  first  things  first.  The  first  things  are  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness.  If 
these  are  put  first  the  other  things  will  be  added 
on.  If  the  other  things  are  put  first,  a  man 
may  not  get  them  and  at  the  same  time  he  will 
lose  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  his  fruitless  struggle. 
The  chief  end  of  man — of  the  business  man,  the 
professional  man,  every  man — is  to  glorify  God 
and  to  serve  Him  forever. 

Now  is  it  not  to  some  extent  true  that  the 
business  world  has  reversed  the  Christian  order? 
Has  not  the  business  world  created  the  impres¬ 
sion  that  its  underlying  purpose  is  to  seek  first 
material  prosperity,  profits,  dividends,  salaries, 
wealth — and  hope  at  the  same  time  that  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  will  be  added  on?  It  does  not 
work  that  way.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not 
work  that  way.  We  have  to  take  our  choice 
between  serving  God  in  the  business  world  or 

* - - - - - - 


[  34  ] 


* 


•i— 

serving  Mammon.  We  cannot  serve  both.  If 
we  seek  the  Kingdom  of  God  first,  our  Heavenly 
Father  will  take  care  of  the  rest.  But  if  we 
seek  Mammon  first,  we  shall  in  all  probability 
not  get  it;  and  we  shall  lose  the  Kingdom  of  God 
besides.  “The  concentration  of  all  effort  and 
mental  energy  upon  material  achievement  upsets 
the  spiritual  equilibrium  of  society.  It  produces 
contrasts  of  wealth  and  poverty,  and  out  of 
these  come  envy,  jealousy,  class  hatreds,  economic 
and  military  warfare,  and  finally  the  destruction 
of  the  wealth  that  has  been  so  laboriously  created. 
For  no  society  built  on  a  lie  can  endure.”  Busi¬ 
ness  itself  cannot  endure  if  it  is  built  on  a  lie. 
If  the  sole  object  of  business  is  the  making  of 
money  and  if  the  principle  of  service  is  elimi¬ 
nated,  business  itself  will  go  to  the  wall.  In  the 
long  run  and  in  the  last  analysis  the  permanence 
and  the  security  of  business  depend  on  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  service  which  it  renders.  “Seek  ye 
first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness, 
and  all  these  thftigs  shall  be  added  unto  you.” 

How  can  the  business  man  seek  God  first  in 
his  office,  in  his  bank,  in  his  store,  in  his  factory, 
behind  the  counter?  He  seeks  God  first  by  seeing 
to  it  that  he  operates  his  business  in  accordance 
with  the  moral  law  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
That  moral  law  is  not  a  vague  abstraction.  It  is 
not  merely  the  conscience  of  any  age.  It  is  not 
a  guess  at  ethics.  It  is  something  quite  concrete. 
It  is  written  down.  It  is  immutable  and  un¬ 
changeable  and  woe  be  to  the  business  house  that 

■* - — - * 


[  35  ] 


.  1  " 

ventures  to  set  it  aside.  That  moral  law  is  found 
in  its  simplest  form  in  the  Ten  Commandments. 

Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me. 

Six  days  shalt  thou  labor.  One  day  shalt 
thou  dedicate  to  rest  and  to  public  worship  of 
God. 


Thou  shalt  not  steal  directly  or  indirectly. 

Thou  shalt  not  murder  either  directly  or 
by  process  of  slow  torture. 

Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  about 
the  goods  that  you  make  and  sell. 

Thou  shalt  not  base  your  business  on  ava¬ 
rice  or  covetousness,  but  on  the  principle  of 
service. 

There  is  the  moral  law  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  in  language  which  no  business  man  of  in¬ 
telligence  can  misunderstand.  No  one  will  deny 
that  there  are  practical  difficulties  in  operating 
this  moral  law  in  the  business  world.  Of  course 
there  are.  The  difficulties  must  be  overcome 
however,  for  the  moral  law  cannot  be  altered  to 
suit  our  selfish  considerations.  The  difficulties 
do  not  arise  from  the  unworkableness  of  the  law, 
but  from  the  complexities  of  modern  life.  We 
live  in  a  highly  organized  state  of  society.  Every¬ 
thing  is  organized.  The  individual  is  being  sub¬ 
merged.  As  the  individual  gets  lost  in  the  crowd 
it  becomes  increasingly  difficult  to  fix  individual 
responsibility.  In  the  meantime  the  social  con- 

•f - b 


[  36  ] 


* 


science  is  only  beginning  to  be.  Our  problem  is 
to  socialize  the  individual  conscience  and  indi¬ 
vidualize  the  social  conscience.  It  is  possible  for 
organized  society  to  violate  every  principle  of 
the  moral  law  under  conditions  which  seem  to 
release  the  individual  from  responsibility.  It  is 
possible,  under  our  complex  life  in  the  twentieth 
century  that  the  god  of  industry  might  be  Moloch 
instead  of  Jehovah,  that  men  might  work  or  re¬ 
quire  others  to  work  seven  days  in  the  week,  that 
men  might  utterly  ignore  the  worship  of  God  and 
the  day  of  rest,  that  they  might  commit  theft  on 
a  wholesale  basis,  that  they  might  conduct  their 
business  and  their  industry  in  such  a  way  as  to 
murder  the  finer  sensibilities  of  human  nature, 
that  they  might  misrepresent  the  goods  they  have 
to  sell  to  such  an  extent  that  business  itself  would 
become  honeycombed  with  lies  and  fraud  and 
adulteration,  that  they  might  establish  their  busi¬ 
ness  on  the  basis  of  avarice  rather  than  service, — 
all  this  is  possible,  and  yet  under  circumstances 
where  the  individual  takes  shelter  in  the  crowd. 
We  say  that  the  nation  did  it,  the  state  did  it, 
society  did  it,  the  corporation  did  it,  the  firm  did 
it,  the  concern  did  it,  everybody  did  it  except 
you  and  me.  Nevertheless  the  moral  law  must 
stand  as  the  law  of  business  in  the  twentieth 
century  and  become  applicable  to  corporate 
bodies  as  well  as  individuals.  Its  application  to 
organized  society  involves  such  principles  as 
these — a  six-day  week,  for  a  seven-day  week  robs 
both  God  and  man  ;  one  day  in  seven  for  worship, 
rest  and  recreation,  otherwise  a  man  is  not  at  his 

* - f 


[  37  ] 


* 


* 


best;  an  honest  day’s  work  and  an  honest  day’s 
pay,  otherwise  there  is  theft ;  the  protection  of 
little  children  and  child-bearing  mothers,  other¬ 
wise  the  finer  sensibilities  are  killed  and  human 
life  is  permanently  depreciated;  the  rights  of 
men  to  organize  for  mutual  helpfulness  and  col¬ 
lective  bargaining,  otherwise  they  are  robbed  of 
proper  liberty;  the  right  of  the  firm  to  protection 
against  waste  and  destruction,  otherwise  there  is 
theft  again;  the  right  of  the  public  for  protection 
against  exploitation  and  the  duty  of  the  concern 
to  give  service — these  things  and  such  like  things 
are  involved  in  the  application  of  the  moral  law 
in  our  highly  organized  society.  Several  of  the 
big  businesses  of  this  country  have  abandoned 
the  old  policy  of 

“Let  him  get  who  has  the  power 
And  let  him  keep  who  can,” 

and  are  operating  on  the  principles  herein  out¬ 
lined.  Moreover  they  are  finding  that  it  pays. 
It  is  a  sound  business  principle  to  seek  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness.  Defy 
that  principle  and  in  the  long  run  you  can  look 
for  business  ruin. 

I  have  time  for  only  one  more  thought.  It 
is  my  misfortune  and  yours  too,  that  I  choose  big 
subjects  which  must  be  disposed  of  in  a  few 
minutes  even  if  they  end  with  an  anti-climax. 
The  object  of  business  is  to  make  men  first  and 
money  afterwards.  Men  must  take  precedence 
of  money.  Human  rights  come  before  property 

- - - - - - - - 


[  38  ] 


* 


•I- 


rights.  I  can  give  you  an  illustration  of  this 
which  will  explain  it  better  than  many  arguments. 
This  illustration,  I  am  assured,  is  an  event  which 
actually  occurred.  There  was  a  certain  city  in 
which  the  smoke  nuisance  had  become  intolerable. 
A  mass  meeting  was  called  to  protest  against  it. 
Many  speeches  were  made.  At  last  the  president 
of  a  business  concern  whose  factory  was  belch¬ 
ing  out  enough  black  smoke  to  poison  the  entire 
neighborhood,  rose  and  used  these  words : — 
“Ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  may  be  true  that  the 
smoke  kills  the  people,  but  I  would  remind  you, 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  it  makes  the  city.” 
What  is  the  Christian  man’s  answer  to  this? 
Cities  are  not  necessary  to  our  civilization,  but 
the  moral  law  is.  Cities  may  be  a  menace  to  our 
civilization.  They  certainly  will  be  if  the  moral 
law  becomes  defunct.  The  Christian  man  is 
obliged  to  say  to  a  business  or  an  industry  of 
that  sort,  what  our  Lord  said  when  the  welfare 
of  little  children  was  at  stake.  Better  that  a 
millstone  were  hanged  around  the  neck  of  any 
such  industry  and  it  were  drowned  in  the  depth 
of  the  sea,  than  that  a  dollar  of  dividend  should 
be  declared  at  the  cost  of  human  life  or  at  the 
cost  of  the  violation  of  the  moral  law  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

Here,  then,  is  the  program  for  the  Christian 
man  in  business.  Let  service  be  your  motive, 
righteousness  your  method,  the  Kingdom  of  God 

4 - - - - — - - - * 


[  39  ] 


* 


* 


your  goal.  After  that,  but  not  before  that,  all 
profits  are  legitimate  and  your  Heavenly  Father 
is  going  to  give  the  rewards  to  the  man  that  seeks 
the  Kingdom  of  God  first. 


* 


* 


[  40  ] 


* 


* 


Religion  and  the  Church 

THOSE  of  you  who  have  followed  these 
Holy  Week  addresses  may  have  discov¬ 
ered  in  them,  notwithstanding  their  con¬ 
spicuous  clumsiness,  an  underlying  religious 
philosophy  and  program  which  are  somewhat  at 
variance  with  current  opinion  in  a  good  many 
quarters.  We  have  been  thinking  about  the 
Christian  religion  in  its  bearings  on  our  civili¬ 
zation,  our  race  relationships,  our  politics  and  our 
business.  We  have  carried  religion  into  spheres 
where  it  is  a  good  deal  of  a  stranger,  but  into 
spheres  nevertheless  which  Christ  claims  for  His 
own.  We  have  been  taking  our  stand  during 
this  Holy  Week  on  the  foundation  that  there  is 
no  department  of  human  life  or  activity  from 
which  the  Christian  man  can  exclude  Jesus 
Christ. 

I  have  not  tried  to  conceal  the  fact  that  I 
have  been  trying  to  upset  one  theory  and  set  up 
another  theory  in  its  place.  I  have  been  trying 
to  uproot  and  banish  from  your  minds  the  theory 
that  the  Christian  religion  belongs  only  to  an 
ecclesiastical  compartment,  with  doors  closed  to 
shut  out  the  troublesome  things  which  burden 
men’s  consciences  and  wear  their  hearts  out, 
and  in  which  they  need  spiritual  guidance,  even 
though  it  be  unwelcome.  I  have  been  trying  to 
set  up  in  its  place  the  doctrine  that  religion  is  the 

■* - - - -* 


[  41  ] 


v - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -i“ 

thing  that  permeates  a  man’s  whole  life  and  de¬ 
termines  the  quality  of  his  acts — in  church,  in 
business,  in  industry,  in  politics  and  in  all  kinds 
of  contacts.  A  man  cannot  be  a  good  Christian 
and  a  bad  citizen.  He  cannot  be  a  good  church¬ 
man  and  a  bad  business  man.  He  cannot  be  a 
good  Christian  and  a  bad  neighbour. 

It  may  seem  that  too  much  labor  has  been 
spent  in  trying  to  establish  something  which 
ought  to  be  obvious ;  yet  much  pressure  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  Christian  Church  in 
these  days,  to  keep  it  and  its  mission  and  message 
out  of  the  affairs  of  men.  This  attitude  must 
be  resisted.  No  compromise  can  be  made.  All 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world  must  be  claimed  for 
Christ.  So  far  we  have  been  thinking  about  the 
Christian  religion.  You  may  have  observed  that 
nothing  has  been  said  about  the  Christian 
Church.  Let  us  think  today  about  religion  and 
the  Church. 

The  terms  are  not  synonymous.  The  Church 
is  the  organization  behind  the  idea.  You  busi¬ 
ness  men  understand  that.  Some  of  you  have  a 
first-rate  idea  that  you  want  to  put  into  operation 
in  your  business.  The  idea  will  not  make  head¬ 
way  by  itself.  You  need  a  man  behind  the  idea 
and  an  organization  behind  the  man.  You  have 
a  first-rate  article  that  you  want  to  sell.  It  will 
not  sell  itself.  You  need  a  man  behind  the  article 
and  an  organization  behind  the  man.  So  it  is 
with  the  Christian  religion.  It  has  its  central 
Person.  It  has  the  organization  behind  the 

v— - - b 


[  42  ] 


* 


* 


Person.  Christ  is  the  central  figure  of  the 
Christian  religion.  The  Gospel  is  the  great  idea. 
The  Church  is  the  organization  behind  the  idea. 

There  are  some  men  listening  to  me  today 
who  live  completely  apart  from  the  Church  of 
Christ,  but  who  nevertheless  believe  in  a  general 
way  in  the  Christian  religion.  You  believe  that  it 
is  the  best  thing  in  our  whole  civilization.  At  the 
same  time  you  are  standing  aloof  from  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church.  In  other  words,  you  believe  in  the 
idea  but  you  do  not  believe  in  putting  the  organi¬ 
zation  behind  the  idea.  Your  position  is  entirely 
indefensible.  It  is  a  position  which  if  applied 
to  your  business,  would  lead  to  bankruptcy. 
The  Christian  religion  probably  would  not  have 
survived  a  century  apart  from  the  Christian 
Church  which  was  instituted  to  promote  it.  Christ 
Himself  put  an  organization  behind  His  Gospel. 
He  came  to  the  world  and  taught  men  what  God 
was  like  and  what  man  ought  to  be  like.  He 
taught  them  God’s  loving  fatherhood,  the  duty 
of  human  brotherhood,  the  virtues  of  truth  and 
justice  and  good  will  and  righteousness.  He 
made  people  see  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin 
and  the  only  escape  from  it  through  the  redemp¬ 
tive  love  of  God.  He  taught  the  value  of  human 
life,  the  preciousness  of  the  human  soul,  the 
greatness  of  a  man’s  spiritual  capacity,  the  dig¬ 
nity  of  human  service.  He  drew  men  to  Him  and 
opened  up  His  life  to  them  so  that  they  recog¬ 
nized  Him  as  the  Son  of  God,  and  stood  ready 
to  forsake  all  and  follow  Him.  Then  He  gave 
them  their  commission.  Go  into  all  the  world 

*■ . . . . . . . . .  — b 


[  43  ] 


* 


-fr 


and  make  disciples.  Claim  every  nation,  every 
race,  every  color,  every  kingdom.  Baptize  them 
into  the  kingdom.  Teach  them  the  things  that  I 
have  taught  you.  Endow  them  with  the  spirit¬ 
ual  power  with  which  you  yourselves  are  en¬ 
dowed.  Stand  by  the  incarnate  love  of  God  as 
the  eternal  rock;  and  I  shall  stand  by  you  to  the 
end  of  the  world.  The  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  my  Church.  That  was  the  organi¬ 
zation  which  Christ  put  behind  the  idea;  and  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  Christian  Church  you  and 
I  would  probably  not  have  heard  of  the  Christian 
religion.  If  you  think  the  Christian  religion  is 
worth  while,  get  into  the  organization  that  is 
promoting  it  and  go  to  work. 

The  Church  began  as  a  very  small  body  and 
it  now  encircles  the  globe.  In  spite  of  the  weak¬ 
nesses  of  its  own  members  and  the  inherent 
blemishes  which  are  common  to  human  nature; 
in  spite  of  such  persecution  and  opposition  and 
attack  as  would  have  exterminated  any  merely 
human  organization,  it  has  kept  on  growing.  It 
is  still  growing.  It  is  now  the  greatest  organi¬ 
zation  in  the  world.  It  has  a  greater  capitali¬ 
zation  (if  I  may  use  business  terms  to  business 
men)  than  any  other  organization  in  the  world. 
It  has  more  stockholders  than  any  other.  It  has 
more  agents  in  the  field.  It  has  more  literature. 
It  has  more  benevolent  and  philanthropic  insti¬ 
tutions  standing  to  its  credit  than  any  other.  It 
has  laid  the  foundations  of  our  highest  civili¬ 
zation.  It  has  given  men  new  ideas  of  God  and 
man  and  home  and  wife  and  child  and  mother 

^ 


[  44  ] 


* 


i 


and  school.  It  is  the  best  thing  in  the  world  to¬ 
day.  Get  back  of  it.  Get  into  it.  You  will 
never  regret  it;  for  it  will  give  definiteness  of 
aim  to  your  abstract  and  detached  ideas  about 
religion. 

Many  references  have  been  made  this  week 
to  what  the  new  Testament  calls  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  The  Church  is  not  synonymous  with  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  The  Church  is  the  executive 
agency  for  bringing  into  this  world  God’s  King¬ 
dom  of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy.  The 
Church  is  the  executive  committee  of  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God.  That  is  not  a  theological  definition, 
but  it  will  answer  as  a  platform  definition  of  the 
Church.  It  is  the  executive  committee  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  An  executive  committee  is  a 
body  charged  with  the  duty  of  acting  for  and 
representing  the  whole  body  but  remembering  at 
the  same  time  that  it  is  not  the  whole  body.  If 
it  were  to  exalt  itself  at  the  expense  of  the  body, 
it  would  defeat  its  own  purpose. 

That  brings  me  at  once  to  a  weakness  in  the 
Church  which  we  must  set  ourselves  to  eradicate. 
We  are  apt  to  think  too  much  of  the  Church  as 
an  end  in  itself  rather  than  an  agency  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  Let  me  illustrate  by  taking 
you  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  Church.  It  was 
a  small  group  of  men.  They  had  big  ideas. 
They  had  the  biggest  ideas  that  ever  found  lodge¬ 
ment  in  the  mind  of  the  human  race.  They  set 
out  to  conquer  the  whole  world,  with  those 
ideas.  If  there  was  one  thing  that  characterized 

'Ij 


[  45  ] 


* 


* 


the  early  Church  it  was  its  self-forgetfulness,  its 
lack  of  self-consciousness,  its  consciousness  that 
it  had  a  mission,  a  message,  a  program.  So  big 
was  the  idea,  so  inspiring  the  program  that  they 
did  not  stop  to  think  what  was  going  to  happen  to 
them  or  to  their  organization.  What  if  they  were 
persecuted ;  what  if  they  were  robbed  of  their 
possessions ;  what  if  they  suffered  social  ostra¬ 
cism;  what  if  they  came  into  contract  with 
political  opposition;  what  if  they  were  put  in 
jail ;  what  if  they  were  thrown  to  the  lions.  They 
were  so  possessed  with  their  main  mission  and 
their  main  program  that  they  didn’t  stop  to 
think  what  was  going  to  happen  to  the  Church  or 
to  them.  In  their  very  self-forgetfulness  they 
found  that  the  Church  was  growing  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  It  was  turning  the  world  upside  down 
It  was  capturing  continents.  Then  a  sad  thing 
happened.  It  became  self-conscious.  It  began 
to  think  about  itself,  its  history,  its  art,  its  archi¬ 
tecture,  its  liturgy,  its  rites,  its  vestments,  its 
ceremonies,  its  doctrines.  As  it  began  to  think 
about  itself  more  than  the  Kingdom  of  God  of 
which  it  is  the  executive  agency,  it  lost  power. 
It  lost  spiritual  power.  Then  a  dozen  churches, 
and  later  on  a  hundred  churches  came  into  being 
in  the  way  of  protest.  Then  these  hundred 
churches  acquired  the  same  kind  of  self-consci¬ 
ousness  that  they  had  set  out  to  eradicate.  That, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  the  situation  with  Christianity 
in  the  world  today.  The  Church  is  too  self-con¬ 
scious.  You  and  I  are  too  self-conscious.  We 
are  thinking  too  much  about  ourselves  and  what 

*- - - - - * 


[  46  ] 


* 


* 


is  going  to  happen  to  us.  The  Church  is  think¬ 
ing  too  much  about  itself,  its  structure,  its  tradi¬ 
tions  and  too  little  of  the  purpose  for  which 
Jesus  Christ  sent  it  into  the  world.  Oh  that  the 
Church  in  these  days  when  “men’s  hearts  are 
failing  them  for  fear  and  for  looking  after  those 
things  which  are  coming  on  the  earth”  could  re¬ 
cover  her  former  self-forgetfulness  and  consci¬ 
ousness  of  mission.  It  is  the  need  of  the  hour. 
The  Church  must  refuse  to  be  shut  up  in  a  corner 
or  to  admit  that  so-called  secular  affairs  are  no 
concern  of  hers.  When  she  ceases  to  take  an 
interest  and  to  make  her  voice  heard  in  the 
everyday  life  of  the  people,  in  business  and  poli¬ 
tics  and  race  relationship  and  education  and 
literature,  she  loses  the  power  to  consecrate  them 
to  the  up-building  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Such 
a  program  as  this  may  invite  opposition  and  criti¬ 
cism.  The  church  may  be  told  to  mind  her  own 
business  and  to  keep  her  hands  off.  There  may 
be  some  persecution ;  but  “he  that  loveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it;  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God’s  sake  shall  find  it.”  Only 
through  making  the  larger  claims  for  Christ  can 
we  overcome  the  isolated  ecclesiasticism  of  which 
the  world  is  justly  accusing  the  Church. 

What  is  ecclesiasticism?  It  is  substituting  the 
means  for  the  end.  It  is  not  the  pet  sin  of  any 
church.  One  can  find  it  everywhere.  You  can  find 
it  in  the  silence  of  a  Quaker  meeting,  in  the  fer¬ 
vor  of  a  prayer  meeting,  in  the  worship  of  the 
sanctuary.  The  value  of  a  prayer  meeting  is 
measured,  not  by  its  soothing  effect  upon  the  par- 

•i - * 


[  47  ] 


* 


* 

ticipants,  but  on  the  length  to  which  the  prayers 
reach.  Do  they  reach  up  to  God  ?  Do  they  reach 
out  into  the  factory?  The  value  of  the  religion  of 
the  sanctuary  is  to  be  measured,  not  by  its  beauty 
and  by  the  immediate  comfort  which  we  get  out 
of  it,  but  by  whether  or  not  it  reaches  from  the 
throne  of  God  to  the  market  and  the  street  and 
the  polling  booth.  You  cannot  get  on  without 
prayer  and  worship  and  sacrament  and  sanctuary. 
Without  them  your  life  will  become  sordid  and 
commonplace.  The  sanctuary  is  meant  to  be  “the 
power-station  of  life.”  We  go  to  the  altar  to  be 
the  mediums  through  which  the  current  flows 
from  the  altar  of  God  down  to  the  factory  and 
the  shop.  “To  dissociate  sacraments  and  sacri¬ 
fice  and  worship  from  the  social  and  economic  life 
of  the  people  is  to  pervert  worship  by  divorcing 
what  God  hath  joined  together.” 

I  want  to  take  some  extra  time  on  this  Good 
Friday  to  explain  how  impossible  it  is  for  any¬ 
one’s  personal  religion  to  be  anything  less  than  a 
social  act.  Take  one  of  the  most  personal  and 
private  individual  acts  which  a  man  can  perform 
in  a  religious  way  and  see  how  social  it  is  in  its 
far-reachingness.  There  is  a  man  here  this 
morning  that  committed  a  very  flagrant  sin  last 
week.  He  is  trying  to  forget  about  it,  but  he 
can’t.  As  he  listens  to  me  it  comes  back  to  him 
with  all  the  freshness  and  the  vividness  of  a 
newly-wrought  sin.  He  is  thinking  as  I  speak  that 
he  ought  to  go  to  confession  before  making  his 
Easter  Communion.  It  would  be  a  good  thing  if 
he  did.  He  would  never  regret  it.  He  would 

* - - - * 


[  48  ] 


* 


* 


find  that  the  clouds  would  open  and  the  Son  of 
God  would  come  to  him  with  the  peace  that 
passeth  all  understanding.  And  so  he  is  going 
to  a  Christian  minister  to  tell  his  story.  The  seal 
will  be  put  on  it.  Could  anything  be  more 
private  ?  Could  anything  be  more  personal  ? 
And  yet  that  sin  was  not  a  purely  personal 
matter.  It  involved  others.  That  man’s  sin  was 
a  sin  against  God.  It  was  a  sin  against  his  neigh¬ 
bour.  It  was  a  sin  against  society.  When  he 
confesses  his  sin  to  God,  he  represents  sinful 
humanity.  The  minister  of  reconciliation  through 
whom  he  approaches  God  is  also  a  representative 
person.  He  represents  you  and  me  and  the 
Church  and  society.  He  is  also  God’s  ambas¬ 
sador.  The  forgiveness  is  God’s.  It  is  also  the 
Church’s  and  society’s  forgiveness.  It  is  the  cor¬ 
porate  act  of  the  whole  Church  in  heaven  and 
earth,  welcoming  back  the  sinner  that  repenteth. 
So  it  is  that  the  story  of  that  sin  and  its  cure  is 
the  story  of  the  Cross  in  epitome.  It  is  a  divine 
act,  it  is  a  world  act,  focussed  on  a  single  person. 
And  when  that  man  finds  the  peace  of  God  he 
will  be  a  new  man.  He  will  have  ever  after¬ 
wards  a  love  for  sinful  humanity  which  will 
make  him  bend  his  energies  towards  the  healing 
of  sinful  humanity. 

Some  of  you  are  getting  ready  to  make  your 
Easter  Communion.  Do  not  imagine  for  a 
moment  that  that  act  can  be  confined  to  those 
who  are  immediately  present.  It  is  a  world  act 
that  goes  on  at  the  altar  even  if  there  are  only 
two  or  three  there.  The  bread  and  wine  that  are 

•i - 


[  49  ] 


* 


* 


placed  on  the  altar  are  symbols  of  all  creation — 
of  your  life,  your  property,  your  substance, — 
which  God  is  asked  to  bless.  The  group  who 
gather  there  are  representative  of  the  whole 
human  family.  The  whole  race  is  represented 
there.  All  creation  is  represented  there.  Then 
Christ  comes.  Christ  comes  again  and  again  and 
again ;  and  you  find  Christ  in  the  Eucharist  on 
Easter  morning.  But  if  you  find  Christ  in  the 
Eucharist  you  will  also  find  Him  in  the  Christian 
boys  who  were  at  the  same  Eucharist  at  another 
altar.  You  will  find  Him  in  the  Christian  girls 
who  are  working  in  your  factories.  You  will  find 
Him  in  the  young  men  who  are  out  acting  as 
your  agents  in  business.  If  you  teach  that  Christ¬ 
ian  boy  to  do  fraudulent  work,  if  you  teach  your 
agents  to  misrepresent  the  goods  that  they  sell, 
if  you  tempt  those  young  women  at  the  factory 
to  sin,  do  you  not  see  that  you  are  making  Christ 
a  party  to  your  sins  and  crucifying  the  Son  of 
God  afresh?  That  is  what  makes  the  tragedy  of 
Good  Friday.  The  crucifixion  of  Christ  is  not 
something  that  occurred  long  ago  and  stopped 
there.  It  is  occurring  today  in  Chicago.  Our 
adulteries,  our  wickednesses,  our  hates,  our  blas¬ 
phemies,  our  repudiations  of  the  love  of  God — 
“they  crucify  to  themselves  the  Son  of  God 
afresh  and  put  Him  to  an  open  shame.” 

So  I  end  on  this  Good  Friday  where  I  began 
on  Monday.  There  is  no  department  of  human 
life  from  which  the  Christian  can  exclude  the 
teaching  and  example  of  Jesus  Christ.  “I,  if  I 
be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me.”  In  the 

4. - — - - — - — — - - — - 4. 


[  50  ] 


* 


* 


words  of  Signor  Papini’s  “Life  of  Christ,” — 
“There  never  was  a  time  more  cut  off  from 
Christ  than  ours,  nor  one  which  needed  Him 
more.” 


* 


* 


[  51  ] 


